#Title

Cassava cultivation is catching on in hilly areas of Bangladesh for being relatively inexpensive to farm while offering ample returns. The highly nutritious root vegetable has applications in the pharmaceutical, garment and food processing industries. Here, workers are seen sorting freshly harvested cassava at a farm in Kulaura upazila of Moulvibazar.

Ukraine Black Sea grain deal renewed
REUTERS, Ankara/United Nations
A deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain was renewed on Saturday for at least 60 days - half the intended period - after Russia warned any further extension beyond mid-May would depend on the removal of some Western sanctions.
The pact was brokered with Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey in July and renewed for a further 120 days in November. The aim was to combat a global food crisis that was fueled in part by Russia’s February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine and Black Sea blockade.
The deal had been set to expire on Saturday.
The United Nations and Turkey said on Saturday that the deal had been extended but did not specify for how long. Ukraine said it had been extended for 120 days. But Russia’s cooperation is needed, and Moscow only agreed to renew the pact for 60 days.
“The Black Sea Grain Initiative, alongside the Memorandum of Understanding on promoting Russian food products and fertilisers to the world markets, are critical for global food security, especially for developing countries,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
Russia and Ukraine are key global suppliers of food commodities and Russia is also a top exporter of fertiliser.
Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky said Ukraine had supplied nearly 500,000 tonnes of wheat for UN aid programmes and insisted on Saturday that the Black Sea export pact had been extended for 120 days and was an opportunity to keep helping those in need and “save the world from hunger.”
To help persuade Russia to allow Ukraine to resume its Black Sea grain exports last year, a three-year deal was also struck in July in which the United Nations agreed to help Russia with its food and fertiliser exports.
Commercial vessels including vessels which are part of Black Sea grain deal wait to pass the Bosphorus strait off the shores of Yenikapi in Istanbul
Western powers have imposed tough sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. While its food and fertiliser exports are not sanctioned, Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance industries are a barrier to shipments.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Friday that the European Union, the United States and Britain now “have two months to exempt from their sanctions the entire chain of operations which accompany the Russian agricultural sector,” if they want the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal to continue.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield responded that Washington had “gone to extraordinary lengths to communicate the clear carve-outs for food and fertilizers to governments and to the private sector.”
In a letter to UN officials dated March 16, and posted on Twitter by a Russian diplomat on Saturday, Nebenzia spelled out what Moscow wanted resolved - allowing the Russian Agricultural Bank to return to the SWIFT banking system and allowing the supply to Russia of agricultural machinery and spare parts.
Nebenzia also said restrictions need to be lifted on insurance and access to ports for Russian ships and cargo, a pipeline that delivers Russian ammonia to a Ukrainian Black Sea port needs to be restarted, and the accounts and financial activities of Russian fertiliser companies should be unblocked.
The United Nations has said that while progress has been made on facilitating Russian agricultural exports, there were still impediments, particularly in relation to payment systems.
Dujarric said on Saturday that the United Nations was strongly committed to implementing both the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal and the pact with Moscow and urged “all sides to redouble their efforts to implement them fully.”
Ukraine has so far exported nearly 25 million tonnes of mainly corn and wheat under the deal, according to the United Nations. The top primary destinations for shipments have been China, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands.

Cassava cultivation catching on in hilly areas
MINTU DESHWARA
Cassava, known as shimul alu in Bangladesh, is a root vegetable widely consumed in many countries across the globe for its dietary benefits, which include healthy carbohydrates and vitamin C.
It is also a source of resistant starch, which is used by the food processing and garment industries. Keeping this in mind, farmers in Sylhet are increasingly cultivating cassava on a commercial basis.
In addition, cassava cultivation is putting hilly areas of the region to good use as the lands would have been otherwise vacant.
Cassava has been cultivated on 200 bighas of land in Kulaura upazila of Moulvibazar under the Kandal Crop Development Project of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE).
Farmers say yields have been good as soil and weather conditions are suitable in the region.
According to sources at the local DAE office, domestic cassava cultivation began in Kulaura upazila.
Cassava are harvested between December and February each year, some five to six months after cultivation.
Polit Bhar, a farmer of Joychondi village in Kulaura upazila, said 30 bighas of his 32-bigha field are being used to cultivate cassava under the DAE project.
Each bigha will yield up to 20 kilogrammes of cassava, earning him about Tk 6 lakh.
Bhar went on to say that the costs associated with cassava cultivation are very minimal as no extra care is needed after sowing.
Other than its root, the leaves of cassava plants can also be eaten as a vegetable, used as an organic fertiliser or animal feed, he said.
Md Abdul Hamid, a farmer of Jhumki Jhalai village in the same upazila, said he once considered cassava a wild plant but started growing the crop after getting to know its benefits from agriculture officials.
Locals other than farmers are benefitting too as cassava cultivation is slowly changing the region’s economic landscape.
“I would find it hard to get work before but now, I can easily secure employment thanks to the expansion of cassava cultivation,” said Monwara Begum, a day labourer.
Md Abdul Momin, agriculture officer of Kulaura upazila, said the DAE has been providing all kinds of support ever since cassava cultivation first came to the region.
And while cassava has considerable demand of 3.5 lakh tonnes in the country, only 2 per cent or roughly 6,000 tonnes is produced locally. As such, initiatives have been taken to expand cultivation and thereby reduce import dependence.
A total of 675 acres of land in Sylhet were used to grow 2,000 tonnes of cassava last year.
This year, the cultivation target is 900 acres, Momin added.
Kamruzzaman Kamal, director of marketing at PRAN-RFL Group, said cassava is a root vegetable grown on hilly, arid and relatively less fertile land.
Since 2014, PRAN has been encouraging farmers to grow cassava through contract farming. Subsistence farmers are also cultivating the crop thanks to the availability of training, financial incentives, agricultural input support and low-cost seeds.
As a result, farmers based in hilly areas are becoming increasingly interested in cassava cultivation.
Ever since PRAN took the initiative to cultivate cassava in the country, about 2,000 farmers have been contracted by the leading food processor.
This year, cassava has been cultivated in the Rangamati, Khagrachari, Sylhet, Habiganj, Moulvibazar, Tangail, Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Comilla and Bramanbaria districts with the help of PRAN.
Farmers in these regions are now busy harvesting the crop while simultaneously planting seeds for the next season.
PRAN expects to get at least 20,000 tonnes of the crop from 6,000 bighas of land this year.
The company is also increasing the scope of cultivation to get higher yields next year. Overall cassava cultivation has been set at 8,000 bighas till March with yields of at least 25,000 tonnes expected.
After harvesting the crop, the starch is processed at the Habiganj Industrial Park. Glucose, barley, semolina, bread, noodles, crackers, cakes, bread, biscuits, chips and more can be made from this starch.
Cassava starch is widely used in the garment and pharmaceutical industries as well. PRAN usually uses 60 per cent of the starch at its bakery, confectionary, noodles, glucose units while the remaining 40 per cent is supplied to other industries.
Mokhlesur Rahman, director of the Kandal Crop Development Project, said if people can change their eating patterns and develop balanced and nutritionally rich habits, areas of income will increase along with the treatment of complex diseases.
Local production of starch powder only meets 2 per cent of the demand while the rest is imported at a cost of about Tk 4,000 crore each year, he added.